Day 46 - An average day in Dili - Unfinished Business

June 15, 2023

Day 46 - An average day in Dili

I like getting a feel for a place by walking. It's the best way to orientate. I realized that if I'm going to leave my unloaded bike anywhere then I probably need a lock. Thus I set off to walk to United Bikes, a few km away.

You have to be careful walking the footpaths of Asia. Also, it's hard work always stepping up and down high kerbs.

I easily found United Bikes and chose their expensive lock (US$5) that might be slightly better than a frayed piece of string. It was a couple of km more to the Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum.

A view of the Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum through a banyan tree Ficus benghalensis

I spent the afternoon in this excellent museum. I understand the logic, but find it hard to accept, that Gough Whitlam and Henry Kissinger combined to shaft the people of East Timor. There's an emphasis on reminding young people what their forebears fought for over 25 years and the price they paid. Thus, I was pleased to see so many school children visiting.

I returned most of the way by Microlet, the common transport.

Microlet - tiny minibuses that you can jump on anywhere and cost 25 c. Why would you walk 8 km?

I walked the last bit - always interesting.

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Graham SmithGreat in so many other ways, Gough had a few blind spots. One of them was small countries. He didn’t believe small, especially tiny countries, could be viable sovereign entities in today’s world of increasingly big alliances.

His other blind spot was the Torres Strait. He very nearly gave half of the Torres Strait Islands to PNG. Just draw the border mid-way in the strait said Gough.

Their unlikely saviour was Joh. He refused to let any of TSI be ruled by PNG because Torres Strait Islanders were Queenslanders.
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